


Skin Too Tight To Hold Me All

by BugTongue



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Ableism, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Domestic Violence(?), M/M, Mania, Mental Health Issues, Talk of Sex but No Sex Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:41:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8813725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BugTongue/pseuds/BugTongue
Summary: Newt explains his mania to himself, during his mania, while Hermann acts like a dick about it. They kiss.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a nice depiction of a relationship, don't try this at home. If you are already trying this at home, stop trying this at home.

When he got like this, he could wake up.  
  
When he got like this, he could forgo sleep for day and work the whole time, his ideas coming faster than his body could keep up with. He rushed around the lab spinning off his ideas aloud so his recorder could catch all of it from his breast pocket while he wrote down equations and theories, bits of information that he'd been sleeping on and allowing his subconscious to figure for him. He cut through flesh with precision during his autopsies and dissections and came to the truth.   
  
Like this, his thoughts got tied up and his breath came short and his eyes couldn't focus on any one thing and he wasn't having a panic attack, hed take the panic attack. He dropped shit and tripped over nothing, coordination and clarity failing him.   
  
Like this, he was bursting at seams that were falling apart.   
  
The mania always started out great. It slide up his spine and coiled around his cranium like a golden string, it crowned him godking of the known universe and gave him the book of knowledge to rifle through like a child in his father's desk drawers. Newton could always feel it taking hold again because with it came surety and arrogance that could not be dissuaded; he knew things and he was right and he was going to fucking prove it, _watchout_ . He was an asshole like this, ready to fight and ready to sneer the entire time he was explaining himself.   
  
Then came the jumbling, disorienting haze that turned that golden string into a layer of rotten cloth, stuffing his skull too full, stuffing his mouth and ears and eyes until he couldn't make sense of himself anymore and arrogance turned to acute and crippling doubt, hatred of doubt and hatred of the self.   
  
Atoms that vibrated too fast jumped and blitzed around a room like a gas but nothing could force him from his form, nothing so far. He was not a gas, he was a shambling adult who hadn't eaten in two days or slept in four and his hands shook until he cut himself instead of the sample.   
  
His mania was a theater mask, a grinning frowning behemoth best tied to a chemical leash and beaten into submission. He didn't take his meds because he couldn't take his drugs and the next best thing was the rush of the golden feeling, and the next best crash was causing him to hide under his desk until everything stopped happening so much.   
  
When he finally scrambled out from under the desk to get back to work, a new idea fresh on the frontal lobe, Hermann shot him a disgusted look, his voice absolutely grating to the nerves when he spoke up. "You are an absolute madman, newton. A deranged lunatic who should be escorted back to your room until you can manage _sanity_ ."   
  
Newt whirled around on his heel and appraised the physicist, blood zinging and beginning to poison him. "Why don't you keep your postulation about my mental state to yourself, before I take that cane of yours and show you what happens to rude assholes?"   
  
"Oh how mature," he dragged the word longways and newt felt his stomach twist viciously. "Are you going to start a fight with me again? Because I have the audacity to call you on your outlandish behavior?"   
  
Newt was, unfortunately, beyond words at this point. He didn't know if the black spots in his vision were exhaustion, low blood sugar, or rage, but the glass beaker was shattering against hermanns chalkboard before he even felt its cool surface against his hand. "Fuck you! God! Can you even-"   
  
Hermann was coming around the desk already and he almost felt relief when the man grabbed his shirt and yanked him up so they were nose-to-nose.   
  
Then there were teeth in his lip and his table digging into his exposed lower back, an ache in his chest that didn't come from any physical blow. Hermann leaned in farther so he had to bend back, tilt his face up, drop his jaw to meet the kiss halfway. Mostly halfway. His arm hurt and it took another bite to the mouth to realize he was being manually held in place, and yet another to feel the hair he was twisting in his hands.   
  
He was overheating and so turned on he might as well tell the man in words that he was ready to stop with the fighting and get with the fucking but found two fingers in his mouth instead, yanking his jaw down and pushing his tongue in until he coughed.   
  
"You are so frustrating I think one of these days I may actually kill you." Newt choked out an attempt at rebuttal but the two fingers shifted to pinch his tongue between them. He yanked Hermann's head back an inch. "You irritating little man-" Newt yanked again and bit down on Hermann’s fingers.   
  
They jerked apart like two negative magnets hurled together at high speed, Newt into his autopsy table and Hermann two stumbling steps back before catching himself with the cane.

Newt caught his breath and smoothed his hair back. He was sweating a little, just enough to make his skin damp and his clothes uncomfortable. "Wow Hermann, I didn't realize you felt that way about me."  
  
"I threatened your life, don't take that as a compliment you hazard." Hermann was still angry, still intense, and still looked like he wanted to strip the top layer of skin off Newt with his eyeteeth. A showy glance downward and newt could say he was glad his boner wouldn't be showing like a raunchy flag below the belt. Hermann ground his teeth.   
  
"Want me to take care of that?" He grinned and ignored how many tracks off he was from that idea he wanted to write down.   
  
"I want you to take care of the glass around my chalkboard, and maybe take care of yourself somewhat if you still have energy left over."   
  
"I think sucking your cock sounds a lot nicer right now."   
  
"Insatiable-" Hermann's jaw jutted forward as he cut himself off, eyes rolling. "Clean the glass and we'll call it a night."   
  
Newt swept up the glass with the same energy he'd gone at his work with for the last few days, half-dragged Hermann out of the lab and down the hall with the same buzzing in his blood, but the moment he sat down on their bed his bones felt heavier than lead. God, when had he last slept? Four days, four days ago. Hermann hung up his blazer and toed free of his shoes while newt sagged back into the blankets. Hermann slipped into bed as newts eyelids trembled closed.   
  
The last thing he felt was a dry kiss to the temple.

When he got like this, it meant he was keyed up for days and then he crashed, and then he passed out, and so very rarely did it lead to anything he'd consider fun. When he was more level-headed he could admit to liking the old-man power cuddle he got when he conked out. Because most of all, when he got like this, Hermann was there to catch him.


End file.
